gregory morrow wrote in his discerning media centric voice:

"Gregory Morrow" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque) wrote:
    > > You are being even MORE overly charitable if you assume "hobart" is
    > > capable of logical reasoning!
    > I think you and "hobart" make quite the nifty "pair", Evelyn ;--)
    > --
    > Best
    > Greg

i would say she is teller to my penn or laurel to my hardy but then she / he
wouldn't be allowed to speak - although i am quite sure her repertoire of
facial expressions is quite up to the task. there could also be something
like abbott and costello or martin and lewis but then who knows if success
might get the better of us. successful comedy duos are usually the result
of opposites so i suppose in this we would have a winner - me the quite
logical handsome dude and her / he the grimacing, writhing, unrepentant
social misfit / misanthrope. another team that comes to mind that we might
attempt to emulate or immolate are - burns and allen (we aren't married yet
but i am confident she could do a very adequate gracie). thanks for the
vote of confidence greg baby.

hobart xaxinojo wrote:


    > gregory morrow wrote in his discerning media centric voice:
    > "Gregory Morrow" wrote in message
    > news:[email protected]...
    > >
    > > EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque) wrote:
    > >
    > > > You are being even MORE overly charitable if you assume "hobart" is
    > > > capable of logical reasoning!
    > >
    > > I think you and "hobart" make quite the nifty "pair", Evelyn ;--)
    > >
    > > --
    > > Best
    > > Greg
    > >
    > >
    > i would say she is teller to my penn or laurel to my hardy but then she /
he
    > wouldn't be allowed to speak - although i am quite sure her repertoire of
    > facial expressions is quite up to the task. there could also be something
    > like abbott and costello or martin and lewis but then who knows if success
    > might get the better of us. successful comedy duos are usually the result
    > of opposites so i suppose in this we would have a winner - me the quite
    > logical handsome dude and her / he the grimacing, writhing, unrepentant
    > social misfit / misanthrope. another team that comes to mind that we
might
    > attempt to emulate or immolate are - burns and allen (we aren't married
yet
    > but i am confident she could do a very adequate gracie). thanks for the
    > vote of confidence greg baby.

LOL...yer welcome ;-)

--
Best
Greg

Viktor wrote:
    >>>>Should it not be "they could NOT care less about anything else?"
    >>>Well, yes, it should be. But it's an idiomatic expression that's been
    >>>around for ages. It probably started out as sarcasm. But, it's in the
    >>>language for better or worse. LAnguage is only "piecewise logical". ;
    >>But why not correct it?
    >
    >
    > At the risk of sounding like a snob, I will disagree with the middle
    > poster. That expression has not been around for ages, but I suspect
    > it has been around as long as him. I never heard this expression
    > until the late 1980s. IMHO it started because kids were ignorant
    > of the meaning (witness another poster's pathetic attempt to tell us
    > that it uses correct grammar and logic). One never hears educated
    > people on television using it, only the young and young at heart (or
    > would that be, young at brain?). I doubt if it started out as sarcasm.
    > It is no different than the misuse of its/it's, your/you're, and lose/
    > loose. Language is only piecemeal logical? Hardly. Language is
    > the means by which we communicate.
    >
    > Viktor
    >
    >
Perhaps it depends on where in the US you grew up. This phrase was
around when I was a child in the 50's in New England and IIRC it was
used with a sarcastic tone which it now lacks. It's idiomatic, it's
wrong, I would not use it in formal conversation, but it has a certain
forcefulness that the correct phrase does not have. BTW there are other
New England expressions that would probably make you boil over as well,
also exhibiting a habit of mixing up negatives or leaving them out. We
often as children used to say "I couldn't hardly" instead of "I could
hardly", although this usage seems to be fading with time.

The phrase "piecewise logical" was a reference to mathematical functions
that are said to be "piecewise continuous". I meant that lanugage has
no overall logic that applies in exactly the same way in every instance.
Otherwise we'd have no irregular verbs, etc.

Ellie (she, not he)

On 21 Feb 2003 08:54:34 -0800, [email protected] (Jerry Johnson)
wrote:

    >By now it should be recognized that France never does any action which does
    >not benefit its' own position. The popular press treats the French stand on
    >Iraq as some sort of noble effort. And they fail to report that France would
    >lose a lucrative oil contract if there is a regime change in Iraq. Also, an
    >invasion would find evidence of shipments from France, particularly chemicals
    >and machinery, that were banned by UN Resolution.
    > If you believe that France is on the moral high ground on this issue, just
    >take a look at History.


OK. By the by, you will be posting an explanation of why the French
position is different from all of the bluster and bullshit from
Rumsfeld, Rice, and Bush to the effect that the foreign policy of the
US would be single mindedly to pursue our advantage and screw the
niceties? It played so well with Faux News and the DittoPress. Why
is everyone so upset when others immitate this attitude?

ellie wrote:

    > The phrase "piecewise logical" was a reference to mathematical functions
    > that are said to be "piecewise continuous". I meant that lanugage has
    > no overall logic that applies in exactly the same way in every instance.
    > Otherwise we'd have no irregular verbs, etc.

Don't confuse syntax and semantics. Grammar doesn't have to be completely
logical (though I am not aware of any language in which it is not mostly
so, even if the logic is complex).

But semantics must remain logical, or we lose the ability to communicate.


--
greg byshenk - [email protected] - Leiden, NL
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greg byshenk wrote:

    >ellie wrote:
    >
    >> The phrase "piecewise logical" was a reference to mathematical functions
    >> that are said to be "piecewise continuous". I meant that lanugage has
    >> no overall logic that applies in exactly the same way in every instance.
    >> Otherwise we'd have no irregular verbs, etc.
    >>
    >Don't confuse syntax and semantics. Grammar doesn't have to be completely
    >logical (though I am not aware of any language in which it is not mostly
    >so, even if the logic is complex).
    >But semantics must remain logical, or we lose the ability to communicate.
    >
But idioms, by their nature are often illogical as well as ungrammatical
constructions. Another idiom that mixes up positive and negative is a
construction of the form "It's hard to walk, much less run" Logically,
this seems to be saying that it's much less hard to run than it is to
walk, when in fact it means the opposite. And how about "head over
heels in love" ? Isn't head over heels the normal posture for homo
sapiens? But we know the idiom means to convey the feeling of
everything being wonderfully out of place.

--
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^ ~^~^~^~^~^~^~

http://www.ellieclemens.com

"It's not a game, it's not over."

Jean-Pierre Raffarin



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greg byshenk wrote:

ellie <[email protected]> wrote:



The phrase "piecewise logical" was a reference to mathematical functions
that are said to be "piecewise continuous". I meant that lanugage has
no overall logic that applies in exactly the same way in every instance.
Otherwise we'd have no irregular verbs, etc.



Don't confuse syntax and semantics. Grammar doesn't have to be completely
logical (though I am not aware of any language in which it is not mostly
so, even if the logic is complex).

But semantics must remain logical, or we lose the ability to communicate.




But idioms, by their nature are often illogical as well as ungrammatical
constructions.  Another idiom that mixes up positive and negative is a construction
of the form "It's hard to walk, much less run"  Logically, this seems to
be saying that it's much less hard to run than it is to walk, when in fact
it means the opposite. And how about  "head over heels in love" ?  Isn't
head over heels the normal posture for homo sapiens? But we know the idiom
means to convey the feeling of everything being wonderfully out of place.
ÂÂ
--
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^ ~^~^~^~^~^~^~

http://www.ellieclemens.com

"It's not a game, it's not over."

Jean-Pierre Raffarin





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In article , Marie Lewis

wrote:
    >In article , Jim Morris
    > writes
    >>Actually, I think France is all about the OIL. They could care less about
    >>anything else.
    > Now there is an American expression that always puzzles me. Should it
    >not be "they could NOT care less about anything else?"
He mis-stated the expression. The correct expression is; "they couldn't care
less".

ellie clemens wrote:
    > greg byshenk wrote:
    > >ellie wrote:

    > >> The phrase "piecewise logical" was a reference to mathematical functions
    > >> that are said to be "piecewise continuous". I meant that lanugage has
    > >> no overall logic that applies in exactly the same way in every instance.
    > >> Otherwise we'd have no irregular verbs, etc.

    > >Don't confuse syntax and semantics. Grammar doesn't have to be completely
    > >logical (though I am not aware of any language in which it is not mostly
    > >so, even if the logic is complex).

    > >But semantics must remain logical, or we lose the ability to communicate.

    > But idioms, by their nature are often illogical as well as ungrammatical
    > constructions. Another idiom that mixes up positive and negative is a
    > construction of the form "It's hard to walk, much less run" Logically,
    > this seems to be saying that it's much less hard to run than it is to
    > walk, when in fact it means the opposite. And how about "head over
    > heels in love" ? Isn't head over heels the normal posture for homo
    > sapiens? But we know the idiom means to convey the feeling of
    > everything being wonderfully out of place.

Au contraire. Idioms are not normally illogical; it is just that the
logic is often hidden, and dependent upon the culture in which the
idiom was formed -- which is why idiomatic expressions are strange
when translated or otherwise taken out of their original mileu.

As for the examples, your interpretation of the first is incorrect:
though the construction is admittedly a bit strange, it does _not_ say
that it is "much less hard to run than to walk". As for the second,
it is another case of being simply wrong-headed (a misstatement, like
the original under discussion). I also note that I don't believe that
I have _ever_ (in over 40 years) heard someone actually _use_ that
expression.



--
greg byshenk - [email protected] - Leiden, NL
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